‘New realities’ and tenure reforms: land-use in worker-peasant communities of south-western Zimbabwe (1940s–2006)

Abstract

This article1 is about rural people, what they value and consider as important in their lives, and state policy to ameliorate rural conditions. It is an analysis of the tenure system and landholding patterns in operation among a community of Zimbabwean worker-peasants vis-à-vis the post-colonial state's attempts to reform former Native Reserves (communal areas) after the country's independence in 1980. Based on ethnographic research on the semi-proletarian Gwayi Valley, in Lupane District, the article equates the communal tenure system in practice to Scott's hidden transcripts. The tenure system was a result of constant negotiations and manipulation by households, in response to environmental challenges, and over the years, became central to the very survival of households. The post-colonial state's attempts to reorganise communal areas to make them legible and productive, were opposed to the new culture. The deployment of land-use planning tools to redefine communal area agrarian systems represented a social engineering process which was geared at remoulding households’ livelihoods.